Human Rights Watch found that 52 people died in ICE custody in the 500 days between Trump’s Jan. 20, 2025, inauguration and June 4, 2026.
More recent tracking puts it higher — 54 people died in ICE custody between January 2025 and June 24, 2026, and a Chicago I-Team investigation counted at least 45 deaths in ICE detention centers since the start of the second Trump administration.
This is the highest mortality rate in over a decade — more than double the rate under Trump’s first term, and nearly four times the Biden-era rate; for comparison, ICE reported 26 total deaths across Biden’s entire term.
There have been at least 39 shootings by immigration agents since Jan. 20, 2025, resulting in 9 deaths. Some notable fatal cases this year:
- Renee Nicole Good — killed Jan. 7 in Minneapolis
- Alex Pretti — killed Jan. 24, also Minneapolis
- Keith Porter Jr. — killed Dec. 31, 2025, by an off-duty ICE agent in LA
- Lorenzo Salgado Araujo — killed in Houston, TX, days before the Maine shooting
- Isaias Sanchez Barboza — killed Dec. 11, 2025, near the Texas border
- Joan Sebastian Guerrero — killed in Maine, July 13, 2026
Despite the obvious tragedy is that the vast majority of these victims were US citizens. In my view Trump and his administration have a lot of explaining to do. For example, how do these deaths advance the objectives of an acceptable immigration policy?
Meanwhile ICE needs to be trained and/or retrained to meet the basic employment standards of any of the state police agencies of the states referenced in this letter.
William Swartz
Howell
